The beverage world was abuzz this week as PepsiCo announced it’s buying prebiotic soda brand Poppi for $1.95 billion, concluding weeks of hot—and nearly contentious—better-for-you soda competition that included a clash with Olipop, and a new number of companies, including Coca-Cola, entering the ring.
Poppi began as Mother Beverage in 2015, secured investment from CAVU Ventures’s Rohan Oza on Shark Tank in 2018, and rebranded to Poppi in early 2020. The brand raked in over $500 million in sales in 2024, boasting a star-studded investor group, two Super Bowl ad spots, and even a line of merch at Target, before the beverage giant snapped it up.
Gut punches: The sale comes a month after Poppi garnered online backlash for sending giant branded vending machines to creators ahead of its Super Bowl spot, which some dubbed “out of touch.” Rival Olipop quickly entered the TikTok conversation, speculating on the PR stunt’s extravagant cost. Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth then took to TikTok to clear the air, amassing 1.5 million views.
Two days later, Olipop announced it raised $50 million in Series C funding, with a $1.85 billion valuation. Olipop, which debuted in 2018, secured more than $400 million in sales last year, but Poppi overtook Olipop in wholesale sales share by mid-2024, per consumer intelligence platform Consumer Edge.
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Meanwhile, a flurry of other brands entered the growing category in the last month. In mid-February, Coca-Cola debuted Simply Pop, a prebiotic soda offshoot of its Simply juice line. A week later, sparkling water maker Spindrift introduced Spindrift Soda, made “without unnecessary ingredients” like prebiotics, and a week after that, Bloom Nutrition unveiled its own prebiotic soda, Bloom Pop. Plus, kombucha brand Health-Ade debuted new flavors of its prebiotic soda brand SunSip, a second attempt at the trend after its scrapped Booch Pop.
PepsiCo, too, had planned to launch its own “functional soda” under the Soulboost brand this year, but ultimately scrapped the plans before its Poppi purchase, according to Bloomberg.
What’s next? According to Ellsworth, PepsiCo will support the “next phase of growth and innovation” for the brand. However, PitchBook senior emerging tech analyst Alex Frederick told Retail Brew via email that challenges, like growing competition led by Olipop, remain. Frederick said PepsiCo will need to “leverage Poppi’s brand equity while addressing these challenges and maintaining profitability in a segment where margins are expected to be low or break even in the short term.”